Centuria lifts glasshouse portfolio to $450m with big Vic acquisition
ASX-listed fund manager Centuria has cemented its status as the country’s largest owner of vegetable-growing glasshouses after buying the Katunga Fresh facility in northern Victoria for about $100 million in a sale-and-leaseback deal with the Van den Goor family.
The acquisition of the 21-hectare glasshouse facility, which produces about 15 million kilograms of tomatoes a year and supplies all the major supermarkets, takes Centuria’s glasshouse portfolio to $450 million and over 100 hectares of real estate.
Under the deal, the Van den Goor family’s Katunga Fresh, headed by Peter van den Goor, will lease back the glasshouse facility from Centuria on a new 20-year triple net lease (meaning all outgoings, such as council and water rates, are paid for by the tenant).
A net yield of about 6 per cent is expected to be derived from the investment, which will sit in Centuria’s unlisted agricultural fund (CAF).
The fund also owns glasshouse facilities at Guyra in northern NSW, Adelaide and Port Augusta in South Australia and Warragul, Victoria.
“We like the protected cropping sector,” Centuria co-chief executive Jason Huljich told The Australian Financial Review
He said the appealing aspects of the niche asset class were its long leases and ability to mitigate a lot of the risk that comes from the weather and climate.
“They’re large-scale tenants with a lot of contracts with supermarkets and there are not a lot of institutional investors in this space. We have bought a number of these glasshouses off market,” he said.
In total, Centuria has about $650 million invested in agricultural assets, representing about 3 per cent of its $21.1 billion of assets under management.
Mr Huljich said the fund manager wanted to expand its agricultural exposure to over $1 billion. “We’ve grown pretty quickly from nothing. We’re going pretty well in a tough market,” he said.
Centuria gained its maiden exposure to the agricultural real estate sector when it acquired Perth-based fund manager Primewest for $600 million in 2021, The acquisition included a small unlisted agricultural fund.
For the Van den Goor family, the sale-and-leaseback of its Katunga warehouse will provide capital to expand one of Australia’s largest tomato-growing businesses.
The family came to Australia from the Netherlands in 2003, and started building the Katunga glasshouse the following year.
Vegetable glasshouses were pioneered by the Dutch, who developed them after World War II to help alleviate a food shortage across Europe.
Mr van den Goor said in a video made for the Moira Shire Council last year that the Katunga Fresh glasshouse yielded about 60 to 70 kilograms of tomatoes per square metre and close to 15 million kilograms a year.
“We have B-double trucks leaving every day for Sydney and Melbourne. At peak times, they even leave for Queensland,” he said.
“The tomato business has been pretty good the last couple of years.
“At the moment there is too much pressure from expansion. Last winter, Queensland had a perfect season, so there were a lot of field tomatoes coming from the north all the way down. But generally, it has been pretty good.”
Mr van den Goor said growing food in a glasshouse was the most efficient way to produce food.
“We automate whatever we can so as to get the lowest cost of production,” he said.
